OK, just came back from seeing it, so here's some general thoughts:-If it weren't for The Avengers, Gandalf would be the best action hero of the year.-If Middle-Earth were a real place, I would definitely hang out with the dwarves-When the fuck is Andy Serkis going to get the credit he rightfully deserves? And by that, I mean when are the award people going to bite the bullet and give this man an award?-I "get" the reasons for why this film isn't doing so hot with critics in general, but honestly, the things that can be seen as problems (too long, too much CGI, extended action scenes, scenes that "feel like a video game", dwarves are kind of indistinguishible, etc.) I don't mind them. I believe that Wingnut's work with CGI is, and has been, superb.-You know the film has done its job well when you get to the end and you're thinking "wow, it's been three hours already?"-The film starts pretty slow, but once we finally start the adventure, the whole thing is a blast.-I cheered and shed tears for this movie. I don't think I've had a positive reaction at such a level as when I was watching this movie to anything in a very long time.

I admit that the movie WAS long, but that's not such a big deal. I was entertained the entire time and only ever got curious as to how long I'd been sitting there because I was wondering how much more enjoyment I was going to get out of the film.

I enjoyed the Hobbit, start to finish. It's a completely different tone from LOTR, so it's wise that they didn't try to measure up. I enjoyed the inclusion of the Middle-earth lore to expand on the story, and didn't even mind the random 'Bilbo must prove himself to the dwarves' arc that was thrown in to help give the simplistic character some kind of arc. Whenever you decide to add/subtract something from a movie based on a book in order to better pace the film or keep an audience engaged, as long as the thing that is added/subtracted does not violate the spirit of the story, I'm okay with it.

I can see some of the valid complaints that people have leveled at the film, but maybe I was able to easily overlook them because I was able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the movie for what it was.

Shameless money grubbing? The film is not just the Hobbit, The reason it's over three films is that they are covering other events that go on at the same time, so more then one story in a sense. See it for yourself and you will know what I mean.

Adding material from other books to extend the length of the story to three movies is a money grab. The story of the Hobbit is complete and could be artfully done in one long film. The new fashion of drawing out movies to multiple parts (Potter, Twilight, etc) is nothing but a way to wring more dough from people pockets. Apologize for Jackson all you want, but the book is the book. Jackson shoving more stuff in from other sources just because he can is blatant. The only reason to add 2 movies worth of extraneous material is to get more cash.

So what would you have preferred? That he only made the Hobbit and left out the other stuff that were part of Tolkien's mythos? That those things got their own movies even though that would only result in the same number of movies in the end only with that setup they don't fit together into 1 narrative? Nothing in this movie is pointless padding. It is all material from the Tolkien mythos that deserves to be put on screen and Jacksson has managed to make it all fit together nicely. It is clear that this was done with the intent of honoring ALL of Tolkien's work and not just to grab some extra cash.

On the topic of the movies itself. I liked it a lot. though I think there are a few too many one-liners. They are good one-liners mind you but I kinda doubt Tolkien envisioned that kind of humor for his whimsical adventure. It also feels like they didn't accomplish much in the end. They introduce 3 major threats and all of them are still around by the end of it, only now the party is closer to the Lonely Mountain than they were before. Still, I loved the characters, I loved the adventure and I got a lot of laughs out of it so I say it is still a great movie.

Adding material from other books to extend the length of the story to three movies is a money grab. The story of the Hobbit is complete and could be artfully done in one long film. The new fashion of drawing out movies to multiple parts (Potter, Twilight, etc) is nothing but a way to wring more dough from people pockets. Apologize for Jackson all you want, but the book is the book. Jackson shoving more stuff in from other sources just because he can is blatant. The only reason to add 2 movies worth of extraneous material is to get more cash.

So what would you have preferred? That he only made the Hobbit and left out the other stuff that were part of Tolkien's mythos? That those things got their own movies even though that would only result in the same number of movies in the end only with that setup they don't fit together into 1 narrative? Nothing in this movie is pointless padding. It is all material from the Tolkien mythos that deserves to be put on screen and Jacksson has managed to make it all fit together nicely. It is clear that this was done with the intent of honoring ALL of Tolkien's work and not just to grab some extra cash.

On the topic of the movies itself. I liked it a lot. though I think there are a few too many one-liners. They are good one-liners mind you but I kinda doubt Tolkien envisioned that kind of humor for his whimsical adventure. It also feels like they didn't accomplish much in the end. They introduce 3 major threats and all of them are still around by the end of it, only now the party is closer to the Lonely Mountain than they were before. Still, I loved the characters, I loved the adventure and I got a lot of laughs out of it so I say it is still a great movie.[/quote]

Weird - I got a notification in my inbox saying I got this as a reply to my earlier post and I'm thinking "this response doesn't seem to relate to what I said earlier" then when I get here it leads me to the same post, but as a reply to somebody else's post. Guessing you maybe picked the wrong post to quote then edited it? Or maybe the forums just goofed it up....

i just saw the film in IMAX 3D- wasn't in 48fps-if that's important...

I have watched a few of this guy's reviews, and i find I don't often agree with him.....but this is spot on!It is a great movie. I enjoyed every minute of it. It's not the same epic scale, but there's something special about it.It's long but it never dragged for me...in fact it was was just the right length.

Honestly the reviewer who said this was too long the 'P.Jackson dragged out every single comma in the book' type reviewers, sound like impatient 15 year olds to me that have grown up on fast paced action movies. I found myself annoyed at the amount of action and wanted the dialogue scenes to last for longer....and I have become pretty impatient of late myself after watching all these spoon feeding films.

My biggest complaint was the same as this reviewer...that area's where action happened was over done. crazy CGI unrealistic action. I read the book 8 years ago..and i'm pretty sure the 'action' didn't pan out like that...it's forgiveable because it's hollywood and it was expected,but I don't think it was needed...give the audience some more credit...or maybe not lol

also a thank you to the reviewer of mentioning where the extra material came from.I know some fans may say this in unneccesary ..but the more material the better. I can't get enough of it. Adding extra hints of LOTR's build up from other material is awesome.

Guess I'm going to chime in. I seem to be the only one here, who wasn't impressed. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It was OK at best. Didn't read the book (Read two LOTR books), never was a huge fan.

I felt like in the 3 hours that I spent in the theater, nothing of substance happened. Some scenes were so annoyingly drawn out, that the CGI seriously started bothering me (The scene with Gollum and Bilbo comes to mind, that was painful to watch really). I couldn't muster up any emotion to care for the dwarves, or their silly quest. Bilbo was the only character that was ok. The rest could die at one point, and I would not care at all. I mean, I know it's hard to characterize 14 dwarves... but still, you have 3 movies. Explore at least a few of those little fuckers. The fight scenes... well they might as well be Bollywood song and dance routines. The ending scene was painful. I really felt the whole movie looked kitschy, again this is because the scenes were drawn out for more than they had to be.

I often felt the movie was trying to be funnier than it was, and I felt that the whole freaking trilogy would be much better as a standalone movie, two parts at best.

erttheking:THIRTEEN DWARFS! There are thirteen Dwarfs MovieBob, not twelve, thirteen. I haven't read the book in years and I know that, they always go on about how Bilbo ups the Dwarfs from thirteen to fourteen in order to avoid the unlucky number.

Also, you're worried about them running out of action for the next two movies? Five words. The Battle of Five Armies.

This is a discussion I would like to have, and I wish more of my friends were as into Tolkien lore as I was.

...one you didn't touch on that really bugged me. Why did Gandalf seem to understand the importance of the ring? When Bilbo is about to pull it out, Gandalf gets his "concerned face" on and changes the subject suddenly. Now, I haven't read the book in a while (yeeears!), but I don't recall that bit at all. I recall Gandalf assuming that it was one of the minor rings forged as a sort of practice in the craft taught by Annatar. I understand why the movie had to recognize the importance of the ring, but why did Gandalf?

Ok I'll bite.

This scene makes perfect sense.

1) As Gandalf implies in the Lord of the Rings - all magic rings, even the ones with minor cantrips invested in them, are all the works of the Noldori and Sauron, and so fairly significant artifacts in their own right.

2) One of Gandalf's abilities was to detect a person lying. When Bilbo compulsively inaccurately related the story about how he acquired the ring, for no real reason, Gandalf's spider-sense alarm bells started ringing.

3) The above is reconfirmed in the Prologue to Fellowship which has Tolkien state that Gandalf "disbelieved Bilbo's story..." and that he "continued to be very curious about the ring..."

4) This makes even more sense when you realise Gandalf was starting to become more deeply enmeshed in ringlore with every passing month, as Saruman was pushing this issue constantly at Council, and the possibility the Nazgul had re-arisen in Dol Guldur was raised, and so forth.

McShizzle:Saw it last night, it was OK not too bad. However, the Tolkien nerd in me was disappointed (once again) at the amount of dramatic license taken with parts of the material. In some cases I sort of get it, and the inclusion of material outside The Hobbit is cool, but other times I'm just left wondering why.

- Radagast never meets Bilbo or the Dwarves - I knew he was going to be in the movie and that's fine, but I was surprised Jackson had them meet up like this.

Radagast was done well. There is almost nothing in the source to go off, but a general vibe which Jackson nailed perfectly.

- Not everybody knows this, and I'll concede it's easy to confuse without extra reading, but goblins and orcs are the same thing. Goblins was just another name applied to the race of Orcs, "Orc" being there proper name. It's why they couldn't go out in the sun, orcs hate that shit (and Sauron wasn't back to his full power). Goblins MIGHT be a name applied to a smaller breed of Orc, but that's debatable.

It's made clear a number of times in the primary works that 'mountain goblins' and 'hobo-goblins' refer to a hardier breed of orc, toughened by their long survival in the wild. They are usually larger in stature to the 'rat-folk' orcs that were bred en-masse in the various war efforts of the Nazgul and Sauron (though of course not to be compared to Uruk-Hai). But yes, they are still orcs.

Other than that I agree, I dislike arbitrary change for change's sake, but I don't mind some tweaks for clarity or the conversion to the visual medium.

ie I lament, but understood and accepted, Tom Bombadil's excision from Fellowship (although I was mollified to learn that Jackson fought to keep him in), but I was appalled at what they did Denethor, Faramir and some other characters.

I differ with you with regard to Legolas, however. I loved what they did with him in the trilogy films. He made the point just how awesome elves actually are meant to be. They aren't faggity-men-folk with pointy ears (in fact I'm not really sure Tolkien elves have pointy ears, but I digress). They simply a higher and more powerful kind of humanity - of strength, ability wisdom and stature simply superior to all other sentient beings. They don't age, die, or suffer disease of any sort. They have a natural affinity with the elements and animals that no other living thing save maybe the ents can compare.

So when Legolas, merely a Silvan elf, drinks Gimli under the table, attains acts of martial and acrobatic prowess beyond the comprehension of other races, and does it all while being more scholarly and learned than anyone except Gandalf, well, that's right folk. Elves are just that awesome. He's a boy-prince, but he's still older than Aragorn by centuries.

Remember, the really impressive elves, the Noldor, performed feats like defeating Balrogs in single combat, creating works of craftsmanship that rival heaven's, or wounding the god of Darkness himself.

Weird - I got a notification in my inbox saying I got this as a reply to my earlier post and I'm thinking "this response doesn't seem to relate to what I said earlier" then when I get here it leads me to the same post, but as a reply to somebody else's post. Guessing you maybe picked the wrong post to quote then edited it? Or maybe the forums just goofed it up....

Yeah sorry, that was my blunder. I accidentally pushed the wrong quote button when I was trying to quote the guy above you. I corrected it afterwards and that is why you got a mail saying I had quoted you.

I saw the movie yesterday, in glorious 24fps 2D, so no issues there. Much to my surprise and contrary to many reviews I found the movie quite enjoyable and not boring at all. A welcome addition to the overall depiction of Middle earth. However, it is certainly true that almost every scene could be shaken vigorously to shorten the movie for about 30 minutes without losing something.

The thing that made me mad (remember, it didn't ruin the movie for me, so I must be really old) was that apparently no director is able to do action scenes anymore.

Radagast was fine, the chase scene utter rubbish, almost as bad as the dark knight rises batwing-atrocity

There is also a certain scene reminiscent of watching a let's play from God of War 3. I'm certain it was filled with lots of inventive and satisfying violence, but I couldn't make out a single bit. And if you take action to outlandish levels, all feeling of jeopardy are lost.

Finally, Gollum was fine. I know Gollum, I love Gollum. He looked better than he ever did. The other CGI characters looked like Shrek. Gothmog was a believable threat, Azog... not so much, And the less is said about the Goblin King, the better.

TheSapphireKnight:That is why I have been trying to avoid as much of the Lord of the Rings as possible this year. I have been trying not to go into it with the wrong expectations. I want to see Peter Jackson adaptation of the Hobbit rather than the prequel to the Lord of the Rings if that makes sense.

Some critics have also complained about the heavier use of CGI and lack of practical effects. Is it as much of a problem as some people say?

This might be too late because you might have gone and seen it, but I heard those complaints about the CGI and it did not bother me one bit since the CGI is pretty decent.

This is a discussion I would like to have, and I wish more of my friends were as into Tolkien lore as I was.

...one you didn't touch on that really bugged me. Why did Gandalf seem to understand the importance of the ring? When Bilbo is about to pull it out, Gandalf gets his "concerned face" on and changes the subject suddenly. Now, I haven't read the book in a while (yeeears!), but I don't recall that bit at all. I recall Gandalf assuming that it was one of the minor rings forged as a sort of practice in the craft taught by Annatar. I understand why the movie had to recognize the importance of the ring, but why did Gandalf?

Ok I'll bite.

This scene makes perfect sense.

1) As Gandalf implies in the Lord of the Rings - all magic rings, even the ones with minor cantrips invested in them, are all the works of the Noldori and Sauron, and so fairly significant artifacts in their own right.

2) One of Gandalf's abilities was to detect a person lying. When Bilbo compulsively inaccurately related the story about how he acquired the ring, for no real reason, Gandalf's spider-sense alarm bells started ringing.

3) The above is reconfirmed in the Prologue to Fellowship which has Tolkien state that Gandalf "disbelieved Bilbo's story..." and that he "continued to be very curious about the ring..."

4) This makes even more sense when you realise Gandalf was starting to become more deeply enmeshed in ringlore with every passing month, as Saruman was pushing this issue constantly at Council, and the possibility the Nazgul had re-arisen in Dol Guldur was raised, and so forth.

And never forget Gandalf himself was a Ringbearer...

Very good points, all, actually. And they all make sense in retrospect. In that brief moment, however, I don't think Bilbo even shows the actual ring. He fumbles in his pocket for a second, then Gandalf interrupts. Now, if he is detecting deception and feels that Bilbo should keep whatever secret he has, that's fine and I'll leave it there.

And I'm not sure if Gandalf counts as a Ringbearer ringbearer, since he never possessed The One. He has Narya, one of The Three, which was not made by Sauron but by Celebrimbor alone.

So, I was pleasantly surprised that there were...musical numbers. I didn't expect that and thought it was completely awesome. I haven't read much of either the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings (I just can't stand Tolkien's writing style), I do recall that at times they did sing, which is something I never expected to see in the movies.

Now I want to see full on Broadway versions of LOTR...Sondheim get on it.

And I'm not sure if Gandalf counts as a Ringbearer ringbearer, since he never possessed The One. He has Narya, one of The Three, which was not made by Sauron but by Celebrimbor alone.

Well, what I mean is he knows the burden that goes with bearing a Ring of Power, it's bound to make you have a more than passing curiosity in magic rings.

But in the book, I don't believe Gandalf ever saw the ring, but he figured out where Bilbo got his sudden stealth skills out in very short order. The film makes the scene little more ambiguous, doesn't it?

JaredXE:I hope you don't mean Les Miserables was too damn long, Bob. I think a two and a half hour musical is perfectly fine, especially if you're a theatre watcher like me.

I've got a sinking feeling that Bob won't do Les Mis justice... maybe I'm being unfair but he doesn't strike me as the sort who enjoys musicals much :-/

OT: Just saw the Hobbit this afternoon, absolutely awesome film, highly recommended. It's definitely got a more humorous feel than Rings and really managed to get going after an admittedly slow first half-an-hour.

Given that Django Unchained is 8 minutes longer then Les Mis, I have the sneaking suspicion that he may talking about that one instead of Les Mis. Also I think that QT making a boring movie would be much more disappointing to Bob.

Well it was an entertaining romp and I'll probably be seeing part 2 on or at least near opening weekend.. but yeah, it wasn't really anything that totally grabbed me. The lack of comparitive depth is pretty glaring, even if expected. I did enjoy Bilbo more than I thought I would though. They totally pulled off the funny and lovable aspects without verging into annoying at all.

As for Star Trek 2... meh. It may or may not be a decent movie, but it doesn't feel anything at all like Trek. Not even a little.

Man of Steel looked like something I could sit through and that's saying a lot considering I have what could be considered negative interest in Superman.

I definitely enjoyed the movie since I knew going in that it was not going to be as "epic" as Lord of the Rings. I loved the Dwarves and Bilbo, I liked Radaghast even though I felt like they made him needlessly silly with the bird excrement on his face but in general I liked his cookiness. However... I really, really miss the non-CG orcs that were seen in Lord of the Rings: Gothmog and Lurtz are far more intimidating than the Goblin King and Azog. I loved how in Lord of the Rings the line between CG and real were blurred, while here you almost always know when there is CG even if it is very well done.

As for the length, I did not feel the length of the movie at all. Actually my friend and I looked at eachother at the end and went "Wheres the rest?!" and truly didnt want it to end. It began slow, but fellowship started off quite slow as well. I was also extremely please with how Thorin came out and how they showed his backstory... I wasn't expecting it throughout the film and I thought it was very well done.

Basically the worst part about this movie is that it ISNT Lord of the Rings. There were one or two times when the film tried to be overly dramatic and slow-mo was used for a few seconds too long as well as music/camera angles/scenes that harkened back to the LotR films that couldnt help but remind you that it ISNT Lord of the Rings. I loved The Hobbit, but there were just a couple points that I thought could have easily been better.

I usually agree 99% with Mr. Movie Bob, strangely that it would be on this film that I would find myself diminished to around 45% agreement ratio with great geek elucidator Bob.I think that the best evaluation and wordless review an adventure film can get is wether it excited your senses and/or intellect. The Hobbit did neither for me.It is padded. And it does show.I was truly shocked to found myself bored during a large chunk of the film. And things did not get better near the end. I just could not accept that it was my most honest reaction to what I was seeing.

So that is it.

I have no trouble with the tone being silly... REALLY silly, nor with the technology, the major contrivances of the story to force arcs and goals, nor even the supposed miscast (which I don't think is the case), but if a film this active is this non-exciting as Michael Bay has tought us that it is possible, it can't be great storytelling. Maybe just good(ish) storytelling.

The one sentence review would be : This isn't the Hobbit, its Peter Jackson's Tolkien fanfic.

Long swaths of this movie are boring. If you know anything about the book and all the supplementary sources, you see the padding. You see where Jackson is stuffing in bits to make his three movie deal. The padding could be tolerable if it wasn't so dull.

So many scenes are there just to fill space. The pacing is terrible. All the Radagast stuff in his cabin could be cut and you would lose nothing. And when did Radagast meet with Bilbo and the dwarves? He didn't. Oooooh, wouldn't it be COOL is Radagast met Bilbo! Give me a break.

Thorin, Kili and Fili don't look like dwarves. They look like men. All the other dwarves look like dwarves. Thorin especially does not have a dwarven look about him. My opinion is that he's the "star" and Jackson was afraid to make him look like the others. The other dwarves look wonderful.

Azog, aside from not being the right character - but hey, who cares as long as we're make three movies and stuffing it full of crap lets not bother to get the names right - looks pretty terrible. I saw it in 2d and the cgi sticks out like a sore thumb. The goblin king looks pretty bad, too. Where are the great looking make up effects from the orcs and uruk-hai in LotR?

On the plus, the dwarves singing about their lost home may be the best part of the whole movie. That scene is so affecting and well done. I was humming that song most of the day.

I kind of liked it, but i think itīs pretty damn flawed to say the least. If you look at the first Lord of the Rings movie, itīs really well put together, the action scenes are all there for a reason, in service of the plot. But in the Hobbit the action isnīt really contributing anything to the overall story, itīs action for the sake of action and not much else. And at the same time, itīs just soo over the top, i thought a lot of it was kind of silly and unnecessary.

I liked a lot of stuff, like the opening with the dwarf party at Bilbos, and Bilbos meeting with Gollum, Gandalfs meeting at rivendale and stuff like that. But then thereīs also all the fluff, like, what did the figthing giants accomplish? It didnīt add anything to the story? But the thing i liked the least was that the action scenes went too far, reminded me too much of movies like Indiana Jones 4 and Tintin.

So yeah i was mostly dissapointed, but i did enjoy some parts of the movie, just wished it was shorter because damn... it gets boring at times, itīs never a good sign when you space out during intense action scenes.

Dr Killpatient:The movie is awesome. I don't really understand the critics who don't like it.

While I agree that this is no Fellowship, I have no problem saying that this is actually better than Fellowship. Why? I'll tell you.

Now both movies are similarly built. One might say that they are almost like carbon copies of each other. This actually comes from 3 things.

First, it's intentional. Since Jackson made them all you are reminded of that throughout the movie. For example there is a "Gandalf gets angry" and "grows in size" sequence in both Hobbit and Felloship.

Second, it's accidental. Again all movies were filmed in New Zealand and every time we get to enjoy the nature scenery, you can't help but to recall a similar scene from one of the Rings films. The barren fields sequence where dwarves escape the wargs was clearly filmed in the same location where they filmed wargs ambushing the people of Rohan on their way to Hornburg in Two Towers.

Third, it's Tolkien. It seems Tolkien intentionally mirrored the beginning of Fellowship with Hobbit. You have the Shire, setting out on the journey, meeting new people (though Frodo met them in Rivendell, all the dwarves are introduced in Bag End), and finally visiting Rivendell.

None of this is a bad thing, though you might get a feeling "we've been here, done this".

Now why is it better.

One word: PACING.

The movie starts slow, but once they are out of Shire, it really takes off and the pace does not stop until at the very end.

Fellowship had one huge fault - the climax was in the middle of (well 3/5 into) the movie. I'm talking about the Balin's tomb/The Bridge of Khazad-dum/Balrog sequence. As far as I'm concerned this was the best 20 minute action sequence ever made, but the problem was the anti-climatic Lothlorien that followed it. For me it just took the "oomf" out of the movie. The movie tried to regain the speed after that, and it did manage to do that (to a degree).

However, there is no such problem with Hobbit. Action FLOWS. It really does.

The embellishments and additions that Peter Jackson put into this movie take away from the heart of the story and make it into a cluttered mess. When he stayed on the book, it was a great movie, when he added to it, the movie became a Hollywood-All-Accessable-Light-Show.

Blood Brain Barrier:What movie were you watching? Either you don't consider thematically multidimensional exposition as "contribution to the story" or you weren't paying attention.

Isn't the last 20 minutes of the movie, after all the characters have exited the film, a little late for thematically multidimensional exposition?

Why last 20 minutes? What about the first 20, where we meet a central character and significant themes are introduced which run through the whole movie right up until the end?

On Topic: The Hobbit. What the hell are the critics going on about? It's an excellent film. Rousing, beautiful and touching. There were parts I didn't like but I won't judge them yet because I am sure they are setting up the next films. And unlike everyone else, I thought the weakest part of the film was Gollum's scene.

And compared to LOTR, it was far less hammy. Mainly because the actors were in another class. The action was much better too.